We Live in Time: Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh in sobbingly good love story

A chef diagnosed with ovarian cancer is torn between making her mark and spending time with her family.

Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh in a scene from the movie We Live In Time.

We Live In Time (M)
107 minutes
In cinemas
3.5 stars

As its title suggests, the romantic drama We Live in Time, starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, is about time and how we use it, especially when it is running out.

Is it better to live in the now, in the moment, rather than plan for the future? Is a short happy life preferable to a long unhappy one? And once our time is up, how do we want to be remembered?

These are some of the questions posed in this bittersweet movie directed by Irish filmmaker John Crowley and written by British playwright Nick Payne. Their previous work suggests they are interested in this emotional landscape: Crowley directed Brooklyn (2015), based on Colm Toibin’s 2009 novel and Payne wrote The Sense of an Ending (2017), adapted from Julian Barnes’s 2011 novel.

The setting is London. Almut (Pugh) is a chef and Tobias (Garfield) works for a cereal manufacturer. “You must be really regular,’’ she deadpans.

Here’s their meet cute: he’s on the street in a bathrobe, having ducked out to purchase a pen to sign his divorce papers, and she runs him over in her car.

What follows is a nonlinear account of their relationship, so one needs to pay attention for a while. We learn almost everything about them in the opening 15 minutes as the story jumps between the time lines.

The main stories are: their romance, which includes an argument about whether to have children; her pregnancy; their parenting; her diagnosis and treatment for ovarian cancer.

There are beautiful moments throughout, including when Almut goes into labour in the bathroom of a petrol station. The performances are strong, especially Pugh’s.

Florence Pugh gives a strong performance in We Live In Time.

It’s Almut who has the ticking clock inside her. Tobias can only watch it tick. There’s a pivotal juncture when he finds out she has been training, in secret, to represent Britain in an international cooking competition.

Frustrated, he asks why she is devoting time to cooking instead of her health. At this point their daughter is about eight. “Did it ever occur to you,’’ she asks him, “that I don’t want to just be someone’s dead f..king mum?’’

This is a funny-sad, poignant, beautifully acted film that explores questions we will all have to face at some time in our lives.